Anime Expo Day 3 and Day 4

Hello and welcome to Day 3 of Anime Expo 2018! We start our coverage of the day with the FLCL panel! We’re joined by Maki Terashima-Furuta (President of Production I.G), Gill Austin ([adult swim]’s Toonami), and some of the cast from FLCL Progressive! Before the panelist take the stage the staff starts off will giving away free FLCL posters and shirts. Once the giveaway was finished, it was on to each cast members’ stories while on the set of FLCL Progressive! One of the best stories told was the difficulties Allegra Clark (Voice of Jinyu) had pronouncing Haruko Haruhara (Kari Wahlgren’s character). We were shown a slide of all the takes Allegra Clark had to do for the scene, each funnier than the last. Sorry Allegra! The cast of FLCL Progressive also had so much fun recording that they almost never left, they had to be dragged out, kicking and scream. There was another slide with showing all the moments during and after recording. To wrap up the panel, we were able to see the first five minutes of the FLCLProgressive finale.

We stick around the Petree Hall for the next panel, the Production I.G panel! We’re joined again by Maki Terashima-Furuta and some of the cast from B:the Beginning. Once the introductions were out of the way, we got to see the Japanese movie trailers for FLCL2 (Progressive), FLCL3 (Alternative), Feel the Wind, Psycho-Pass, Legend of the Galatic Heroes, B:the Beginning, After the Rain, Pokemon, Attack on Titan! After those trailers, Maki also introduces her special guest, Yoshihiro Ike (Composer for B:the Beginning)! Yoshihiro shared his experiences of working on B:the Beginning and how the process of how the film scoring went. Before ending the panel, we saw a funny short that was on [adult swim]’s online streaming service, Apaca Alien! That concludes day 3, we’re almost to the end!

Welcome to the final day of Anime Expo 2018! We head over to the YenPress panel to hear the latest and greatest in light novels and manga. The panelist start with a trivial giving away. They had mega posters and slowly unraveled them so the audience can guess and win! Lucky winners got Re:Zero, Spice & Wolf, Your Name, and an Overlord poster. After the give away, they start by announcing their digital to print series; Shut-In Shoutatou Kominami Takes on the World and The Witch’s House, The Diary of Ellen. Bungo Stray Dogs, Kakegurui Twins, Monster Wrestling, Dive!!, Penguin Highway, The Night is Young, Walk on Girl, Mirai!, Happy Sugar Life, Plunderer, Nyankees, Woof Woof Story, Yume de Mita: Anoko no Tame no, and 86 are the newest announced light novels and manga. Panelists then opened the floor for audience Q&A. We were able to ask about the current status of Akame ga Kill! and Akame ga Kill! Zero. Akame ga Kill! was concluded at volume 15 and will be available for purchase July 24th, 2018. Akame ga Kill! Zero is still ongoing, however, author Takahiro is working on Hinowa ga CRUSH!, a continuation of the Akame ga Kill! series! Before leaving, Yen Press also gave all attendees a free light novel or manga of their choice.

We quickly make our way to the King Records panel which had already be in session for 30 minutes. We missed announcements but we were able to watch trailers from Dead Aggressor, K7 Stories: Side Blue and K7 Stories: Side Green. VIZ Media will be releasing all those movies, for further information, keep your eye on their website! With the end of that panel, if also was the end of our trip. This was another great Anime Expo for us here at ToonamiSquad! We couldn’t have asked for it to go any better. We hope you enjoyed our coverage and we would like to give the SPJA and all of the staff a very special thanks for another successful year hosting this celebration! We will miss you dearly and hope to see you next year!